The reputation (and to a degree, notoriety) of 'The Stepford Wives' has
certainly grown over the last 25 years. Even though it wasn't a
significant hit when it was first released, it did result in three TV
movie sequels. ('Revenge of the Stepford Wives,' which trashed the
premise, and probably inevitably, 'The Stepford Husbands' and 'The
Stepford Children.' I'm waiting breathlessly for 'The Stepford
Nannies.') Now it has been released in a somewhat skimpy but
well-produced DVD by the always-interesting Anchor Bay.

The screenplay is credited to William Goldman, although the brief but
interesting set of interviews included on the disc point out that after
director Bryan Forbes came aboard, the script was rewritten, much to
Goldman's annoyance. It was based on a best-selling novel by Ira Levin,
which was pretty much the same kind of feminist-horror tale he told in
'Rosemary's Baby,' though less effective.

The movie is very sleek and glossy; in his interview, Forbes said he
wanted to create horror in the daylight, and to a large degree, he
succeeds, although he reverts to standard old-dark-house,
lightning-storm techniques in the last reel. Beautifully photographed
on attractive New England locations by Owen Roizman, for the most part,
the movie uses real homes, businesses and the like rather than
constructed sets, which add to the realism.

The trouble is that the movie is simply NOT realistic -- or rather,
it's not at all plausible. For the film to work, you have to forget
that it is, ostensible, science fiction, and accept it entirely as a
kind of parable, a metaphor, a fantastic satire. Emotionally, it's all
too believable; as speculation, it's basically silly.

Joanna Eberhart is not entirely happy about moving out of New York with
her husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and two young children (Ronny
Sullivan and Mary Stuart Masterson, Peter's real daughter, making her
acting debut). She's been hoping to launch a career as a photographer,
and she likes the bustle of the city. But Walter has decided that
moving to the semi-planned community of Stepford will be better for all
of them.

The house is beautiful, but Joanna soon finds herself bored. Walter is
absent many nights, involved in a local men's club; some of the local
women, notably across-the-road neighbor Carol Van Sant (Nanette Newman,
Forbes' wife), seem peculiarly obsessed with hearth and home. Their
houses are spotless, their makeup perfect, their clothes stylish but
demure, and their devotion to their husbands so fond and extreme as to
be creepy.

Fortunately, Joanna meets outgoing, funny Bobbie Markowe (Paula
Prentiss), and the two also make friends with sexy, languid Charmaine
Wimperis (Tina Louise). Charmaine plays a lot of tennis, and seems to
be playing around with her tennis coach, too. But to the surprise of
Joanna and Bobbie, Charmaine suddenly changes her interests; now she,
too, wears long, graceful dresses, talks endlessly about recipes and
how to keep the house clean, and is quietly but passionately devoted to
her husband.

The two friends begin to suspect something is very wrong in Stepford....

And of course, it is. The novel was written when feminism had revived
itself, and was a very hot topic; Levin, and this movie, are very
strongly pro-feminist, which to a degree dates them both (it features a
consciousness-raising session). If the film were to be remade -- and
there's been some talk of that -- many elements would have to be
adjusted.

But the basic point it is making, that all too many men fear and
dislike women who seek their own place in the world, including in their
marriages, is still valid. The Stepford Wives are sexually compliant,
always well-dressed, maintain their houses spotlessly, are soft-spoken,
have no real ideas of their own, etc. etc. It's an exaggeration, of
course, and dated; not many men today fear the loss of their
masculinity if their wives simply want a job outside the home. (The
Stepford husbands are a pretty boring lot themselves; their wives are
actually more interesting -- before the transformation, that is.) But
the belief in the macho ethic still crawls beneath the skin of all too
many men. Most women of today might regard 'The Stepford Wives' as a
quaint, if well-made, story; others are likely to see its application
to their own lives very clearly.

'The Stepford Wives' is a horror movie, but it was made with a kind of
cocked-eyebrow approach; some of the creepiest scenes, as one near the
end in Bobbie's kitchen, are as funny as they are disturbing. Bryan
Forbes has had a hit and miss career, with highlights like 'King Rat'
and 'Seance on a Wet Afternoon,' middling efforts like 'International
Velvet' and 'The Wrong Box,' and some outright stinkers. 'The Stepford
Wives' isn't one of his best movies, but it is one of his most
memorable.

Katharine Ross stepped into the role at nearly the last moment, but
she's excellent in it: vulnerable, intelligent, cautiously ambitious,
observant. Her career as a star was short lived, but this is one of the
highlights. Much the same can be said for Paula Prentiss, who's
terrific as the eccentric, acerbic Bobbie. Tina Louise has some good
moments as Charmaine before the alteration into a Stepford Wife. On the
other hand, Peter Masterson is a notably boring actor, something of a
hole in the screen. It's hard to imagine why a woman like Joanna would
marry this guy.

Anchor Bay has done a good, if limited, job with their DVD. Among those
interviewed are Katharine Ross, Bryan Forbes, Nanette Newman, Paula
Prentiss, Peter Masterson and producer Edgar J. Scherick . What's there
is interesting, but there's little followup. What do these people think
of the movie today? What is their opinion of the sequels? Masterson
exhibits veiled hostility toward Forbes, and supports the unseen
Goldman's viewpoint. We're left wanting to know more about Goldman's
original script, the differences between his version and the shooting
script, and whether the production was in any way troubled (as it seems
to have been). The other extras are less interesting: a trailer, some
radio spots and the like.

It's difficult to discuss the movie without revealing the secret of the
story, so if you do NOT want to know what's behind it all, you should
stop reading here.

Joanna is allowed to attend a meeting of the men's association, where
she meets Dale "Diz" Coba (Patrick O'Neal); he got his nickname from
having worked at Disneyland. There are a lot of electronics and
computer firms around Stepford, including Coba's company. All this is
to support the premise that wealthy men move to Stepford -- then have
their wives murdered and replaced by compliant robots so similar to the
dead women that outsiders accept them as real people. This idea is
absurd: the technology doesn't exist now, and didn't then; it would be
impossible to maintain this secret, if only because the CHILDREN would
notice; it would be phenomenally expensive. For these reasons and
others, 'The Stepford Wives' simply does not work as science fiction.

But it does work as a wry, bitter parable on male-female relationships
in the United States at a particular time and place, when the ideal of
womanhood -- at least from the perspective of all too many men -- was
the madonna/whore dichotomy. Furthermore, the film comments on the
concept of conformity; suburbs like Stepford still exist, where
everyone has to maintain neatly-trimmed lawns, everyone has to have
similar decorations, virtually no individuality is tolerated, and
residents' associations have veto power over personal taste and
preferences. Stepford is out there, waiting for you to move in. All you
have to do is surrender your right to choose.